Interview with International Guitar Night Founder Brian Gore

By: Dr. Matt Warnock

Brian Gore is not your typical musician. While most guitarists would be satisfied with a prominent recording, performing, writing or promotional career, the San Francisco resident has decided to combine all of these different musical and business interests into a highly diversified, and highly-recognized, career. He maintains a busy concert schedule as a solo artist, acting as both songwriter and performer, writes instructional and music business related books and has founded and developed the highly successful International Guitar Night tour and album series.

Featuring a who-who’s of the acoustic, classical and world music guitar fields, the IGN is now into its tenth season of touring Canada, the United States and Europe. With an eclectic program that includes a wide variety of musical styles and backgrounds, including finger-style, jazz, Gypsy-jazz, blues, classical and world music, the tour has developed a devoted and energetic following over the years. By featuring artists who write and perform original material, festival leader Brian Gore has helped provide a new and unique canvas for songwriters within the instrumental guitar idiom, something that has drawn considerable praise from critics, fans and guitarists around the world.

International Guitar Night founder and director Brian Gore recently sat down with Guitar International Magazine to talk about the tour’s current lineup, how the tour was founded and his plans for the events future.

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Matt Warnock: What was the initial inspiration behind forming the International Guitar Night?

Brian Gore: I would say that it’s something that I kind of stumbled into. I started doing a guitar series in the Bay area with a friend, and was really enjoying it. We had a season of double-billed performances booked in this little, fifty-seat theater, which was going great. We showcased players like Dusan Bogdanovic, Alex DeGrassi, Peppino D’Agostino and Andrew York. I had wanted to keep running the series as it was, but my friend, who was co-running it with me, wanted to spend more time with his kids so he couldn’t do it.

There were a lot of people who were interested in continuing the series, both players and fans, so I went forward with it on my own. I decided to run it at a different venue here in town, and to feature more local players on the bill, as well as players like York or D’Agostino when they were in the area. The shows ended up lasting like three hours and no one ever left. We would end up having three-hundred people coming out to every concert. I figured if we can do it here then why not at bigger halls in other cities across the country and abroad.

Matt: Since you’ve worked with so many great players over the years for the IGN series, how did you choose the guitarists that were featured on your latest record, International Guitar Night IV?

Brian: I choose each player for different reasons, since they all come from such varied backgrounds. Stephen Bennett is a very popular player and among steel-string guitarists he has a very good reputation. Over the many years I’ve had a number of requests from fans to include Stephen on the tour. He was also recommended by Clive Carroll, who was on our IGN II CD and has toured with us in the past.

We’ve never had a harp guitarist before, and he’s probably the most preeminent harp guitarist on the scene today. We had wanted to have him on last year’s tour but it didn’t work out. He’s constantly getting requests to go on tour or do gigs with various people, so we feel very lucky that he was available to work with us this year.

Lulu Reinhardt came to us because we’ve always wanted to have a Gypsy player on the tour, but unfortunately not very many Gypsy guitarists write their own material and up until now we’ve exclusively featured guitarists who write their own songs. Lulu has a great repertoire of original material, which I think is cool because in the Gypsy world most people want to hear, and play, Django songs, but he’s willing to step outside that box and do his own thing. He’s also eclectic, which is something that is good as well. He does all kinds of music, including his Gypsy-Rumba thing, which is important for the tour, to have people like that, because it’s a very eclectic show.

We’ve never been able to feature an Israeli guitarist so it was great when Itamar Erez was able to join us. I think his mixture of Judaic and Arabic music is very cool, and is something that not a lot of people are doing. I think what he’s doing is great because there’s so much animosity out there in those two worlds, and he’s somebody that really tries to find a way to do things musically that brings harmony between those two cultures.

Matt: What you’re doing, especially in regards to featuring musicians from such different backgrounds, seems like a fairly unique concept in the guitar world. What has been the audience reaction to the wide variety of musical genres and approaches to the guitar that you feature on your tours?

Brian: There is a wide variety, but there’s also a very specific unity that underlines every show. There are a lot of technically amazing guitar players out there, whether or not the majority of them are solid musicians or great songwriters are different issues entirely. I’m constantly awed and humbled by the level of technical talent in guitar, but when we try and find people out there who do it with a strong sense of musicality, and who write their own music, the playing field suddenly becomes much smaller.

It’s not to say that people who play that kind of music aren’t interesting or aren’t legit players, but at the IGN we’ve tried to feature guitarists that are tasteful and who write their own material. We’re not really trying to do Chopsfest 2009 or anything like that. We’ve developed our own audience for the IGN, and because we offer that specific content in our shows, people will come out to the concerts because we’ve built it up over the years. People know that they’ll be able to hear some great songwriting and guitar playing, as well as the high level of technicality that the players on the tour have in their playing.

Matt: It seems like there’s a dichotomy within the guitar world, especially when doing a concert that features an all guitar lineup like the IGN does. On the one hand there’s a bit of pressure from within the guitar community to showcase technically virtuosic players, which draws more of a guitar playing audience, but on the other hand the general public sometimes prefers to hear more melodic music. Have you had to deal with this duality when trying to figure out who to feature on the tours and how you are going to market the concerts to the guitar-playing and general public?

Brian: I think that that duality exists, but at the same time the line between those two worlds is becoming more blurred. I think there’s a big audience for technically interesting stuff, but by choosing to do things the other way, which is the way I prefer, then it’s just a matter of taste, nothing else.

I used to think that guitarists only wanted to check out players that had amazing chops, and by writing technically challenging music I was limiting myself to a very specific audience that played the guitar and dug that kind of music. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think that when you’ve got a video on YouTube of the fastest guitar player in the world getting millions of hits that all those viewers aren’t guitarists.

So things are changing and I think it just comes down to a matter of taste. I believe that it’s always best to use your technique in the service of writing really good songs, as well as having a wide range of pieces. That’s just the way I’ve decided to do things. It was never a matter of trying to get a bigger audience, or reach a certain fan base, it was just the way I wanted to write and play music and that’s translated over to how the IGN is run.

Matt: Do you feel it’s necessary for solo guitarists in today’s world to write and perform their own material in order to develop their own voice within the field?

Brian: When I first started out there was this vanguard of classical guitarists who were writing their own music and doing their own thing. I don’t think it was as easy for them to get out and present their music fifteen years ago as it is now. I’m thinking of people like Dusan Bogdanovic and Andrew York, people who were able to get some recognition within the classical guitar world for what they did, but the classical guitar world wasn’t supporting them as much as they should have.

By including players like this, and many others, alongside the steel-string guitarists we feature, I think the IGN has helped to expose the steel-string loving audience to a number of great classical guitar composers. It’s also helped show that these classical players needed to have a lot more recognition and support for what they did. I think it’s a different scene now, but it’s still tough for classical players who do their own thing.

In steel-string guitar it’s a lot more common for people to write their own music. It’s a lot less unusual and less problematic. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite by any stretch, but as a player we have to ask ourselves what we want to do with our music. For me, I just love to write music and I happen to do it on the guitar, so I’m drawn to those types of players, who write and perform original material, regardless of what type of guitar they play, steel-string, classical or otherwise.

Matt: Besides the work you do with the IGN you’ve also released a solo CD and tour as a solo artist. As you go forward with your career do you see yourself gravitating to one or the other, or are you trying to maintain a balance between both aspects of your musical career?

Brian: My solo concerts are much different from what the IGN does because I have a whole program of music with lyrics. I want to try and do a month or two of just me with a singer every year. I think that it really helps me stand out because the program is much different, it’s not just solo guitar. Also, I feel a lot better when I get a chance to do a solo show that showcases that side of my playing as well.

Aside from what I’m doing as a player I’ve also written a book on finger-style guitar, I’m writing a book on music promotion and I’ve also written a novella. So, I have a lot of stuff going on. The novella’s going to have a song-cycle that goes along with it too. So, there’ll be a CD, the illustrations and the book as part of the novella.

Matt: Sounds like you’re keeping yourself very busy.

Brian: I think that’s what you have to do, try and constantly seek out new ideas and work with as many people as possible. If you have something creative inside of you, I think it’s important that you find ways of getting it out into the world, and that’s what I’m trying to do as I move forward in my career.